This Declining Industry!!!

...I am LIVID today! For the first time in my 35 yr. career of being a Piping Designer I had an “engineer” tell me to stop asking questions and just modify the drawings as he had marked them up! …I had asked 2 questions, one if he had allowed enough space for future equipment & piping, and lastly he had marked up a P&ID with a “symbol” I couldn’t recognize and I asked what it was?
Unfortunately this is another symptom of this declining industry! …Since I’m contract this seemed like the “safest” place to blow off steam. ;D-=-=-

Well I got an apology today from this “engineer” …then in the next sentence he’s asking me to pickup the new red-line markups he has on the drawings we’re doing. I did them, but the next thing I did was Email the Design/Drafting Supervisor and show him the Email that was sent to me telling me to stop asking questions and just do the drawings. I asked to be relieved of this project and to be replaced with a “draftsman” this guy can direct as he likes. …Of course I was turned down (as I guessed); the Design/Drafting Supervisor is an engineer with NO time as a designer or a draftsman except what he did in school. He sited project deadline concerns and promised to “talk” with this “engineer” …i.e. they go have lunch and get to joke about the “designer that thinks he knows how a project is put together”!
You know most of the time I look on my job as “fun” …I like working with people to build something, to be apart of it, to be knowledgeable enough that people come to me to ask how I’d do it or what I think of the way things are laid out, but CR*P like this is the only part of my job that I call “work” …having to deal with a pin-head engineer!

I thinkl this is becoming more common practice in the industry these days. As companies attempt to replace piping designers with young engineers. It depends on the attitude of the engineer. Usually an experienced engineer understands the value of a good piper and has learned to trust them. It is the green guys who are parachuted into lead roles who don't have the experience who can be troublesome. If that engineer wants to learn we can show him a lot but unfortunately some come with an attitude that they are God's gift to the industry and we who are not engineers are inferior creatures. Usually by the time you "train" an engineer like this and get some good co-operation from him/her along comes another green one with attitude and the process starts all over again.
You know you have an attitude problem immediately when they refer to us a drafting and not as designers. They don't know the difference yet and it is incumbent on us to help with their education.
I remember when graduate engineers would spend the first two years working on the drafting board with designers to understand our job. That doesn't happen now and more's the pity for it.

You should try working in Norway where even the most fundemental of the old rules are now totally ignored e.g use of certain letters of the alphabet was considered taboo in Engineering. Now all letters are used.Also here you have young Graduates given Project Engineer titles and small projects to run with which are usually issued without any experienced person checking them. Recipe for disaster which luckily hasn't happened yet. I have 44 years in Engineering from Mechanical Technical Apprentice to current position Snr Piping Designer PDMS. I have witnessed a continual decline in the Industry which accelerated with CAD.Years ago you could tell instantly on the drawing board if someone was experienced or just a chancer now they can hide in the CAD Models